Emulator r41 Released ("Marrakech")

Michael Steil · Post by **Michael Steil** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:37 am

https://github.com/commanderx16/x16-emulator/releases

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Mon May 16, 2022 6:13 am

Wow

I really like the look of the new 80x30 display mode. This is what I fondly remember from my Commodore 128 days.

rje · Post by **rje** » Mon May 16, 2022 2:14 pm

^ and I like the look of your Space Trader game.

desertfish · Post by **desertfish** » Mon May 16, 2022 4:41 pm

Yeah that looks pretty good, I should probably change my text-elite trader program to use this screen mode as well. Square fonts just doesn't read nearly as well as tall fonts....

AndyMt · Post by **AndyMt** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:41 pm

On 5/16/2022 at 6:41 PM, desertfish said:

Square fonts just doesn't read nearly as well as tall fonts....

Yes - on the Atari ST I used a 8x12 front in certain software where this was possible (in monochrome 640x400). That gave me 33 lines of text which was much easier to read while still offering more content on screen.

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Mon May 16, 2022 5:43 pm

On 5/16/2022 at 7:14 AM, rje said:

^ and I like the look of your Space Trader game.

Thanks. It's basically just a menu screen and init code right now. I like these kinds of turn-based, casual games, and I want to finish this one, since I wasted hours on a version of this on the Palm Pilot back in 1998 or so. I know what I want to do with it, but it'll be a bit before I get back to it. I've just got too many irons in the fire, and Commander programming has been at the bottom of the list - but is rising, now that the emulator is moving forward.

Michael has been knocking away a lot of rough edges in terms of usability, and I'm pretty excited about that.

rje · Post by **rje** » Mon May 16, 2022 8:33 pm

Okay, so the PETSCII tiles have moved to $1:F000. I think this means that my code which loads files to banked RAM changes from:

Quote

// load PET font

cbm_k_bsout(0x8E); // revert to primary case

cbm_k_setnam("petfont.bin");

cbm_k_setlfs(0,8,0);

cbm_k_load(2, 0x0f800);

to:

Quote

// load PET font

cbm_k_bsout(0x8E); // revert to primary case

cbm_k_setnam("petfont.bin");

cbm_k_setlfs(0,8,0);

cbm_k_load(2, 0x0f000);

$F800 to $F000, easy. But I'm wrong.

Ed Minchau · Post by **Ed Minchau** » Mon May 16, 2022 9:07 pm

On 5/16/2022 at 2:33 PM, rje said:

Okay, so the PETSCII tiles have moved to $1:F000. I think this means that my code which loads files to banked RAM changes from:

to:

$F800 to $F000, easy. But I'm wrong.

cbm_k_load(3,0xF000)

rje · Post by **rje** » Tue May 17, 2022 6:23 pm

Three, eh? OK then, sounds reasonable, I'll try that out tonite after work.

rje · Post by **rje** » Wed May 18, 2022 3:06 pm

Yep, that did it. Thank you.

NOW I have to decide what to CUT from my code. I'm down to 1100 free bytes of main RAM. Currently "externalizing" more constants into a RAM bank, which should get me at least another 1K. But of course I can always simplify my code too.